PACE/Gladstone court claim

Had particulars of claim back from Ace below. I've changed a few bits just to strike out identifying bits for online use. The court has now said that I have extra time to file a more detailed defence now that I know what specifically i'm defending. Any advice for what I should add to mine?

"THE CONTRACT
1. The Claimant is a Parking Operator managing the land at LOCATION.
2. The Claimant installed signs (i.e. the “Contract”) on the Land that set out its terms of parking. A
copy of the Contract is attached to these Particulars of Claim marked ‘Document 1’.
3. The Claimant entered into a Contract with the driver of the vehicle with Registration Number
XXX XXX (“the Vehicle”). A schedule is set out below;
PCN NUMBER DATE OF CHARGE LOCATION DESCRIPTION
xxxxx
Not Displaying a Valid Permit
4. Through the act of parking as described above, pursuant to the Contract, the driver accepted the
Claimant’s terms and was issued with a Parking Charge Notice for the sum set out in the Contract
(‘the Relevant Charge’).
5. The driver failed to pay the Relevant Charge within 28 days (‘the Relevant Period’) or indeed at
all. The Relevant Charge now forms the substantive element of this claim.
6. In addition to the Relevant Charge the Claimant claims £50.00 in general damages as a predetermined
and nominal contribution to its actual losses suffered as a result of the Relevant
Charge not being paid within the Relevant Period.
1
REGISTERED KEEPER
7. The Defendant is the Registered Keeper of the Vehicle.
8. Pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Claimant has the right to
recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the Vehicle and the ‘keeper’ of the
Vehicle is presumed to be the Registered Keeper, unless the contrary is proven.
9. Notwithstanding the above, the Defendant was driving the Vehicle.
CLAIM FOR INTEREST
10. The Claimant claims interest under S.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% from the
date of 28 days after the charge until the date of issue of this claim (12 June 2017) and
continuing at a rate of £0.03 per day until judgment or earlier payment or alternatively at such
rate that the Court thinks fit.
CLAIM FOR COSTS
11. The Claimant claims costs on contractual (indemnity) basis, pursuant to CPR 44.5, as the contract
contains an expressed indemnity clause permitting them to do so.
AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS:
(1) The Relevant Charge as a debt;
(2) Damages for the Defendant’s breach of contract in the sum of £50.00, as set out above;
(3) Statutory interest, as set out above; and
(4) Costs on a contractual (indemnity) basis pursuant to CPR 44.5, together with the fixed fees and
costs of issuing."

Johnersh wrote: »

I need the sign/contract...

Link to sign here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk7ss6ytru8cs1x/Ace%20sign.pdf?dl=0

There were also photos from the night in question in a web link from their original letter, that haven't popped up since then, and as far as I know, haven't been submitted to the court.

Would it be wise for me to bring them up and use them as they show the car in a bay that only has a name sign for the building I was in, NOT an ace sign?

Amended Defence Statement, let me know what you think?

1) It is denied that any 'parking charges or indemnity costs' (whatever they might be) are owed and any debt is denied in its entirety.
a) This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number of identical 'draft particulars'. The badly mail-merged documents contain very little information.

b) The Schedule of information is sparse of detailed information.

c) The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim as having no reasonable prospect of success.

2) No evidence has been supplied by this claimant as to who parked the vehicle. Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 there is no presumption in law as to who parked a vehicle on private land nor does there exist any obligation for a keeper to name a driver.

3) The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 'legal representative’s (or even admin) costs' were incurred. I deny the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever.

4) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. HMCS have identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

5) I believe the term for such conduct is ‘robot-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. I have reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to my significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

6) I suggest that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

7) The alleged debt as described in the claim are unenforceable penalties, being just the sort of unconscionable charges exposed as offending against the penalty rule, in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

8) Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA), a registered keeper can only be held liable for the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (a sum which is much less than the claim).

9) It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal fees/costs are simply numbers made up out of thin air, and are an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which would not be recoverable in the small claims court. The lack of diligence in this claim demonstrates admirably that at best a ‘copy and paste' is the closest a human, legally trained or not, came to the information transmitted from claimant to the Money Claims Online system. There are no real costs and POFA prevents claims exceeding the sum on the original parking notice.
10) No Contract or evidence of Agreement between the Claimant and the land owner has been supplied, therefore it cannot be assumed that the Claimant even has authority to be issuing charge notices or even permits.

11) It is denied that there was a contract made between the Claimant and the driver through signage as the area was badly lit and sparsely signed, with different bays showing different company signage for various businesses surrounding the car park.
a) Due to the bad lighting and late time of the parking in winter the ticket issued by the claimant was not in fact seen by the driver until they had reversed out of the bay and started driving forwards towards the exit. I believe this shows just how insufficient the lighting situation in the car park was.

b) Notwithstanding the provisions of the POFA and/or the existing easements, and rights of way, it is denied that the signs used by this claimant can have created a fair or transparent contract with a driver in any event.
c) Pace V Lengyel (from May 2017) showed that the Claimant's signs (including the one shown by the Claimant in this case) fail to enter into contract with the driver as implied by the Claimant. No where on the sign does it inform the reader that by parking in the car park, he/she is entering into a contract with the Claimant. The words “contract’ or “agreement’ do not appear at all within the sign. The phrase “Terms and Conditions” are not synonymous with a contract. Furthermore the opening words of the sign appear to be design more to ward off trespassers than to enter into a contract with the driver.
d) As the signs failed to enter the Driver into a contract with the Claimant then any costs claimed on a contractual basis cannot be valid.

12) If the court is minded to accept that the Claimant has standing then I submit that the signs on site at the time of the alleged events were insufficient in terms of their numbers, distribution, wording and lighting to reasonably convey a contractual obligation and did not in any event at the time comply with the requirements of the Code of Practice of the Independent Parking Committee’s Accredited Operators Scheme a signatory to which the Claimant was at the relevant time.

13) In the absence of any signage that contractually bind a driver then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case.

14) This case can be easily distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis which the Judges held was 'entirely different' from most ordinary economic contract disputes. Charges cannot exist merely to punish drivers. This claimant has failed to show any comparable 'legitimate interest' to save their charge from Lord Dunedin's four tests for a penalty, which the Supreme Court Judges found was still adequate in less complex cases, such as this allegation.

15) The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts claimed due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant is wholly unreasonable and vexatious. As such, I am keeping a note of my wasted time/costs in dealing with this matter.

16) I suggest the court strike out this claim for the reasons stated above, and for similar reasons cited by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 where a similar claim was struck out, due to Gladstones' template particulars for a private parking firm being 'incoherent', and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''.

The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:

(a) Failed to create a contract with the driver through insuffience and incorrect signage.

(b) Sent a template, well-known to be generic cut and paste 'Particulars' of claim relying on irrelevant case law (Beavis) which ignores the fact that this Claimant cannot hold registered keepers liable in law, due to their own choice of non-POFA documentation.

Coupon-mad wrote: »

‘robot-claims’ should read ‘robo-claims’.

If they filed a claim in July, how come you have only now got 'Particulars of Claim'? Were they ordered to file new POC or risk the claim being struck out? And you've also been given a chance to amend your defence?

Or is that in fact their 'witness statement' and you have a court date at your local court?

They've said you were the registered keeper, but you said to us earlier, you are not. And they know that...because they know from the DVLA that the rk was your OH who they wrote to with a NTK.

Also don't forget this:

So, you never received any parking charge notice at all, and so you yourself, were never afforded the opportunity to appeal a PCN.

Were YOU ever sent a LBC in your name? Yet the claim form suddenly arrived in your name?

They only filed these particulars once the court threatened to strike out the case. So this is now my amended defence.

The original NTK and LBC came to my husband who was registered keeper at the time (we no longer have the car), but not driver at the time of incident. I replied, (not mentioning whether i was or was not the registered keeper) to the LBC asking for details etc as recommended here. Then about six months later they then re-wrote the LBC exactly the same but with my name on it. Then once I replied, asking for info again, they then filed the claim form to my name.

Hope that makes sense.